Emotional Egan taking life ‘one day at a time’

BOXER Kenneth Egan has revealed how his life spiralled out of control after he won a silver medal at the Olympics.

Egan admitted he spent two years after his heroic performance in Beijing in August 2008 on marathon drinking sessions, some of which would last for up to two weeks, before he staggered back home.

In a brutally honest interview, the Dubliner, who’s now based in Miami, said he’s been sober for the past 25 weeks, but still attends regular AA meetings — to help him cope with his addiction.

He also credits his mother Maura with helping him turn his life around, after she broke down in tears at the graves of two of her other sons who died in early childhood.

Egan hasn’t drank since that day and is now focused on more Olympic glory at the London Games next year.

But he cautiously admits he’s taking it “one day at a time.”

Back in Dublin to defend his national senior light-heavyweight title, which he was held for the past 10 years, he gave his frankest interview to TV presenter Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ One’s The Saturday Night Show.

Egan said: “I was in a bad place. I was drinking too much. Ever since I got back from the Games I just went mad on it and didn’t stop. Before the Olympics I would have had a few pints now and again if I had a few weeks off. But it all changed after the Games. I didn’t have to go back to the gym for a while and suddenly there were benders that were happening too often. They would go on for a week, two weeks. I’d go mad. I’d start with my mates and then the next day I’d go with someone else and then the last day of the week I’d be sitting with an old man in acorner, giving him high fives, having the craic. At the end of it I’d say, ‘What am I at here?’ I’d go home then, get into bed, feel all sorry for myself, sweat nightmares, the whole lot. I broke my mother’s heart.

“She often said to me she’d be at home waiting up ‘til four in the morning for the guards to give her the bad news about me. It was just going wrong. I could see myself then in even four or five years sitting in a bar, saying the Olympics are after slipping through my hands because of the gargle that’s sitting in front of me.

“I was out on the whole celebrity thing, drinking in places I never normally would in a million years. One time I was with my brother and a friend of mine drinking champagne like it was going out of fashion. And of course I had to get carried by the brother and put in a taxi. I was drinking champagne down the hatch like shots.”

Referring to an occasion when he missed a scheduled fight in Dublin, he told how he turned up drunk at the airport and on the spur of the moment decided to go to New York.

“I was half-cut going to the airport. I saw the big sign with all the different countries and said, ‘Where will I go here?’ I thought wherever was the quickest. I missed an international fight. The other fighter had come over from New York to Dublin to fight me. It was wrong of me to do it. Thank God it’s all behind me.”

Then, holding back the tears, a visibly-choked Egan recalled the moment his mother gave him the advice he needed to restart his life.

“I’m sober 25 weeks. I went off it last August. This is the first time I’ve really told anyone, but the last bender I was on probably lasted a week until I came home. As usual my mother was worried sick. I was in the bed and she came in and got me out the bed. I was dying, but she said, ‘Come on Kenny, I want to go for a spin with you in the car’.

“I got into the car and she brought me up to the graveyard in Tallaght. She buried two sons years ago when they were only young. She’s on her knees looking up at me and she goes, ‘Look, this is the way you’re going, Kenny, if you don’t stop drinking’. I don’t want you to go before me. I just said, ‘Jesus, I’ll have to stop’. She was there on her knees, crying, but that was it. That was the last time I drank.”

His mother Maura, who was part of the studio audience, said things had got so bad, she no longer recognised her son when his drinking was at its worst.

“He was a different Kenneth. There are two Kenneths. There was the nice Kenneth when he wasn’t drinking and there was the different Kenneth when he was drinking. But we had to do something to stop it and get him out of that environment.

“Before the Olympics no one knew who he was. He was just Kenneth Egan, that’s all he was. But when he came back it was like they had created this monster. Everywhere he went there were drinks and he lost control of his life. He had to get the control back and he did.”

She added: “When he decided to go to Miami, it was a godsend. I hadn’t seen him since November and he looks brilliant. Now I’ve no worries about him at all.”

Although he was sceptical about attending AA meetings, Egan looks back now saying it was the best decision he ever made.

He explained: “I was hurting people around me, but I didn’t see it when I was drinking. I had blinkers on and all I cared about was the craic I was having. I didn’t care about anything else. It was all laughs and jokes and slagging. It was great until you wake up a week later and your phone rings and you’re too afraid to answer it.

“But I then got help from the Institute of Sport and told them the story. I thought about going into rehab, but I went round to a good friend of mine, Deco Doyle, and told him I’d a problem with drink and was a binge drinker. I wouldn’t touch it for weeks on end, but once I hit it, I couldn’t stop.

“So he brought me to AA. I always thought AA was supposed to be all these head-bangers in the room talking and stuff, but I found it brilliant. Every man there was telling a story I could relate to, like the blackouts, letting people down and everything else that went wrong. I said to myself, ‘I need to switch on here’, so I went to AA and I had a couple of lapses and slipped up once or twice.”

Referring to the option of a spell in rehab, he said: “I could have gone to these other places for three months on end, but I didn’t feel I was that bad. I wasn’t homeless or anything like that, but I was going there. I could see myself with not an arse in my trousers and not a penny to spend in a few years time. At the very start I didn’t want to go to AA. But I’m still going to meetings. It’s working for me. I’m just taking it one day at a time.”

Egan looks in good shape to defend his national seniors title on Feb 11.

He added: “My main goal is the Olympics in 2012, but I’m not looking too far down that road. It’s the national seniors next and the world championships in Azerbaijan in September, so it’s a busy time ahead. I’m still senior champion. I won two seniors when I came back from the Olympics amongst all the madness. I’m fit and healthy and looking forward to the future. There is a stage where I’ll be happy to retire and be on the other side of the ring as a coach. I’m not finished yet. I’ve another two or three years left in me.”